


Cuts

by deanobanion



Category: Boardwalk Empire
Genre: F/M, Historical, addition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-24
Updated: 2013-09-24
Packaged: 2018-01-25 10:29:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1645406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deanobanion/pseuds/deanobanion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean/Viola, scenes from 1920-1924</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cuts

December, 1920

He’s not the most handsome man at the party, but Viola decides to weave her way through the crowd of glittering dresses and freshly shined shoes to stand next to him anyway. “My sister tells me you’re the man who keeps us well supplied,” she says and takes a short sip from her crystal glass.

"Does she, now?” he responds, lighting himself a cigarette. “I’m sorry to have to inform you miss, but this is a big place.” He gestures at the rest of the crowd. “Your sister must have me mistaken for someone else."

“You don’t have to lie. You’re Dion O—”

"No. It’s Dean,” he cuts her off, “and who am I speaking to? It might be in my best interest to befriend a girl who knows everything.” The way he talks seems unnatural to her. The emphasis is wrong, almost forced, as if he were reading from a script.

“Viola Kaniff… and I’ll take one of those if you’re sharing.”

“Nice to meet you, Miss Kaniff,” he says, offering her a cigarette from a silver case. “I don’t know where the papers got that…Dion…but I suppose they like the way it sounds.”

If the way he talks isn’t genuine, his smile as he lights her cigarette is. They stand in the back smoking while the sound of the piano trickles unnoticed over guests who talk about vacations, recent break ups, and marriage proposals. He looks content to just enjoy the performance. It’s different from what Viola is used to; he’s different, but it’s refreshing.

“I’ll give you a tip, Dean,” she says, and he looks over at her. “If you want to fit in here you have to look like you don’t enjoy it. Like you’re better than all of it.”

He raises his eyebrows, “Is that so?”

She demonstrates: lifting her chin and taking a long drag on her cigarette, Viola crosses her arms and lets the smoke billow out from her lips slowly. She holds it until she can’t stop a small, playful smile from creeping across her mouth. Dean covers his face with his hand and laughs. They break character together.

“Oh man, that’s all? If I knew it was that easy to get in with you people, I’d have been here a long time ago!”

\--

March, 1922

In the darkness, Viola stretches her arm across their bed to the spot where he should be, but her hand comes back empty. She pushes the covers off and sits up, sliding her feet into soft slippers and pulling on a silk robe. 

She finds him standing at the window looking out, a black silhouette against the city lights. It’s not unusual. She often catches him in the living room sitting at the player piano, straightening the paintings, or reorganizing the books on the oak wood shelves. These things he bought to make her happy (and, she suspects, to prove to himself that he’d made it) haunt him in the early hours of the morning. 

Still, she thinks, it’s better than when he kisses her goodbye and tells her not to wait up. Those nights she’s left restless until she hears the turn of the key in the door and feels him slide into bed next to her slowly, pointlessly trying not to wake her.

“Come back to bed, baby,” she says, walking toward him.

He smiles back at her and answers, “I will. I was just looking.”

Viola joins him at the window and sleepily wraps her arms around him. “At what?”

“All of this.”

\--

May, 1924

When she walks to the front of the shop he’s cutting small white roses and fitting them carefully into a large vase. She leans on the counter and looks more closely at his work; he already has a large funeral spray and three bouquets ready. “Is this all for the Smith funeral?” she asks.

He nods and puts his cigarette out. “Listen Vi, it’s getting late. I want you to go home. I’ll tell Hymie to get the car.” As he talks, his attention doesn’t move from the piece in front of him.

“He’s upstairs. Another headache. Besides, I have some orders I still need to look over for you,” she resists, flipping through the account book.

Dean puts down the flowers to look up at her. “Then I’ll call Mueller to get you. I can handle this.” he says.

“I don’t want you here alone.” It’s more command than statement, and by the look he gives her— eyes tightened, lips pursed— it irritates him.

He throws one right back at her. “Damn it Viola, I told you to stop it.”

“I can’t just pretend like nothing is happening!” She’s tired of letting him skirt around the issue. “That man was arrested. They aren’t going to just—”

Dean takes out his anger on the order in front of him. One second it’s on the counter top, the next it’s strewn about the wooden floor. Sharp pieces of glass glitter amongst rose petals, clippers, and other tools.

The sound makes her flinch slightly, but she looks away from it and stands her ground. He won’t win like this today. The second hand of the clock ticks nine times until she hears glass crunching under his footsteps. He grabs her chin and squares her face with his own, but she refuses to move her eyes to look at him. “Are you cut?” he asks.

“No,” she replies. He lets go of her chin and moves his hand up to touch her face. She finally meets his gaze and his eyes have lost their anger.

“I wish I could stop you from thinking about it, but you’re too sharp for your own good” he says, cradling her face in both hands. “We’ll get out of here for a bit, huh? Take a vacation.” Viola softens, letting him pull her close. His hands move to her waist and he lifts her, sitting her on top of the counter. It’s only then, when he pushes her dress above her knees with his fingertips, that she stops worrying.

\--

November, 1924

It’s all she can do to get herself in the door before she collapses. Her knees hit the floor, and she gives in, lying down on her side and pulling her legs close to her chest.

The apartment is so full of flowers that it smells like the shop. The arrangements were sent from friends, strangers, and enemies, but the messages are the same old things: “Rest in peace” and “God rest his soul”. She’s seen the phrases so many times on Dean’s work that they don’t mean anything to her anymore. She wants to rip all of them into pieces and throw them out the window, but right now she can’t even pick herself up.

Just a few mornings ago she was in this same room, sitting at the table a few feet away, sipping coffee, and flipping through the pages of a magazine when the phone rang. The voice on the other end, which she recognized as George Moran’s, skipped over the usual pleasantries and asked, “Has anyone been over there?”

“Well, hello to you too, George,” she answered playfully. “No, no one’s been here. Why?”

“I— I’m so sorry I have to tell you this, Viola…” His voice was soft and shaky.

She could feel her face getting warm. “What’s wrong, George?”

“Dean is gone. He was shot, and he’s gone. I’m so sorry. I’m sending someone over there right now. Whatever you do, don’t talk to any—” She remembers the receiver hitting the floor, but only the sound her own blood pumping in her ears.

At the funeral, the boys whispered to her that “the bastards will pay”, the whole time casting glances across the huge, noisy crowd at a group of noticeably unbereaved men in sharp suits. The promise is meant to be consoling, but it doesn’t help. Viola knows that no matter how much more blood pools on the streets of Chicago, her husband won’t walk back through their apartment door.

Somehow though, lying with her face pressed against the cool wood floor, it’s comforting when she imagines herself pulling the trigger.


End file.
